Recently an old friend asked us for a suggestion for a good Shiraz. This is a great question because Shiraz is something that we've all become accustomed to seeing in our local wine store due to the dramatic increase in Australian wine production in the last 10 years. But Shiraz, or Syrah, has been around for years and years. Shiraz and Syrah are just different names for the same grape (but don't confuse this with Petite Sirah, which is a completely different grape). Historically most people think that Syrah originated in the Rhone Valley of France, where it still makes up some of the best wines of the Rhone Valley (in the form of Cote Rotie and Hermitage). But some others think it came from somewhere else, including the city of Shiraz in Iran, which used to produce a wine called Shirazi. The grape came to be known in Australia and South Africa as Shiraz, in France as Syrah, and California - well California goes both ways.
But the differences are not just in the name. Thinking about the Rhone Valley of France, it's a cooler area, whereas Australia is really very warm. This impacts how the grape ripens and how the wine ends up tasting. In France and cooler parts of California and Australia, the grape ripens more slowly, and tend to retain more of its acidity - hence less sugar and a lower alcohol content in general. A northern Rhone Syrah will usually taste quite peppery and earthy, with some darker cherry and smoky fruit flavors. In most of Australia though, you get quite different results. Australia's summers (in January) can be very hot and dry, and as a result, the Shiraz grape ripens very quickly and can be really intense and concentrated. The sugars in the grape ferment fully, and so you often get a wine that's higher in alcohol, and has more intense red fruit flavors, rather than the more subtle pepper and smokiness than you would get in a cooler climate.
Back to that amazing increase in Australian wine over the last few years. Overproduction in Australia has, in our opinion, caused both prices and quality to go down. The US is Australia's second biggest wine market, and there is a huge glut of Australian wine out there. It's like a lot of things, you see that your product is successful, so you want to make more of it to make more money. But in trying to make more money, your quality goes down. This is unfortunately the way it is with wine - grapevines that are high-yielding don't usually make wine that's as good as those vines that yield fewer grapes (it's really a catch-22: low yield=better wine=higher prices=pocketbook squeeze).
But we digress a bit because you can really still find some great Australian Shiraz out there, at all price points. We're just going to mention a few, simply because this is an area that we haven't really "visited" much recently. Years ago when we first started tasting wine (when we were making little to no money), you could not get a better red wine than Wolf Blass Shiraz or Shiraz-Cab blend (we identified them as such: Wolf Blass red label was the Shiraz-Cab blend, the green label was straight Shiraz, and the yellow label was straight Cab - color coordination was a great thing). We also absolutely loved a wine called Jamiesons Run-a blend of Cabernet, Shiraz, & Merlot. That was a staple but due to changing times, we're sad that it hasn't been available in the US for a number of years. But since then, there's been a lot of consolidation in the wine industry, and Fosters (of oilcan beer fame) owns a fair amount of the quality labels in Australia. One of the easiest to find is the Penfolds brand.
Penfolds Koonunga Hill is a wine that we recommend for every day due to its price point in the $10-12 range. Koonunga Hill (besides being fun to say) is a nice, easy drinking blend of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, with all the fruitiness you expect to taste in Australia Shiraz, but not "too jammy" (i.e. too much fruit, not much else to back it up). Penfolds is a really reliable name, and you'll find lots of "Bin" this or that. One of the most revered wines of the current day is a Penfolds product, the venerable Grange (between $275-400 a bottle depending on vintage!) While I would love to try a Grange (and was very jealous to read that my Australian friend Simon Kriss got one for Christmas), that's way too rich for our money. But never fear, Penfolds still has a great quality Shiraz blend within most people's price range: Penfolds Bin 389. Bin 389 runs between $28-40 depending on who you ask and is a really full-bodied and rich wine. For straight up Shiraz in Australia, Peter Lehmann is another reputable producer.
So we've talked a little bit about what a Syrah is like in France, and a lot about Australian Shiraz up to this point. But right here at home, the state of California really does make some nice ones (they generally go by "Syrah"). We like the California Syrahs from the Central Coast-Santa Barbara area - look for Lincourt Syrah (Santa Barbara County) and Qupe Syrah, also from the Central Coast, primarily from Santa Barbara County. Starting with Qupe Syrah, we first tried this wine with a Mothers Day lunch at Legal Seafoods in Boston a million years ago. We thought it had a really rich, peppery, black fruit flavor, a really dense and enjoyable wine. Unfortunately for us and our pocketbooks, the price of Qupe skyrocketed in the late '90s and early part of this decade. However we recently came across Qupe for $15-17 a bottle, a comparative bargain. It's definitely worth another look.
Our second California recommendation is the Lincourt Syrah. You may have never seen Lincourt before but I'll bet if you ask your local wine store if they can get it, most likely they can. A little bit of history - we first came across Lincourt as part of a reeallly old wine club that we belonged to in 1998, called Secret Cellars. This club focused on wines from the Santa Barbara area - which at the time we almost never saw in our local stores. Now it's not uncommon to find these wines readily available. Lincourt Syrah is grown in the cool microclimate of the Santa Barbara County, in close proximity to the cooling breezes of the Pacific Ocean. Lincourt Syrah has some nice pepper and spice, and plenty of dark red fruit to back it up.
We hope you've enjoyed this discussion of Shiraz, or Syrah, even though we've only really touched the tip of the iceberg in terms of what's out there. If you have a favorite Syrah or Shiraz, please tell us about it!
Like what you drink, drink what you like!
Rachel & Bryan Gavini
No comments:
Post a Comment